Free // BTS AU //

Prologue

The tom-boy sat beside her friends, staring into the ember glow of the campfire in front of her reminiscing on her past. The boys all watching her with a sense of curiosity. They never really knew of her past, just knew of the identity she was given.

"As an infant, I was cared for by servants." She spoke lowly, the crackling of the burning wood filling the pause. "The woman who had lost her child due to stillborn still needed a babe to drink from her, and my mother just truly didn't care for her leaking teets and her hungry babe. So the woman took care of me as if I was the child she was meant to have.  Don't get me wrong, I was loved by that servant till she grew old and grey and she unfortunately passed. But it somewhat hurt knowing that I was born into a family that didn't want me for the sheer joy of building a family but into a bloodline they wanted to keep alive till those damn walls came tumbling down."

Namjoon looked at the girl sat on the log opposite him. He knew of that struggle himself. Pity filled his eyes. He knew that life of parents not wanting their own offspring. He knew the life of having to live on specific rules under protection, he knew the sacrifices he had made to become friends with the six other boys gathered around the fire.

She kept talking about her memories as she stared into the fire. "She died the day I was officially crowned Princess." She hummed gently. "I couldn't believe my parents that day, the woman I viewed as a mother had died and they still wanted me out in public in one of those heavy dresses with a stupidly dainty tiara and tears pouring down my cheeks." She spat venomously. "After she died, I became much more adventurous - I'd visit the village every weekend, I'd socialise with the townsfolk, I'd sit on the castle walls in the moonlight until the guards saw me and sent me back into the castle. But even then the village wasn't enough for me, I wanted more. I wanted to breathe the air from another town, I wanted to run barefoot through grass..." She smiled happily.

"But why did they let you-"

"They didn't. I wasn't even meant to be out of the castle walls." She looked up. "Then the terrorists came, ransacked the village for any wealth that they had and left a note telling the family that they were next in line for the raid, and that we wouldn't be able to stop them. The guards tripled in numbers, and then I wasn't even allowed in the courtyard."

"They thought it was us, didn't they?" Hoseok whispered.

"Of course they did, witches, fae, runaways, criminals? A group easy to pin the blame on." The fire began to die out and Yoongi huffed, flicking his hand and the pile of sticks and branches besides the fire lifted and went into it. "I never thought it would be you guys. Even before I met you all. But once we got that message from whoever was terrorizing the village? I knew it was my chance to escape. I knew that my parents would be too busy protecting themselves that they wouldn't notice."

"Hye..." Jungkook whispered softly. 

"I'm free now, and now I have a much better family than what I thought I'd ever get."